The material in these tutorials are
intended to aid in your understanding of basic organic nomenclature. The
pages are subdivided into topics based on the different functional groups
present in organic molecules. Each section consists of a brief introduction,
including examples, and a number of interactive on-line quizzes to test
your understanding of the material. As a student it is your responsibility
to determine when you have a sufficient understanding of the material.

Organic nomenclature is based on
the priority of the different functional
groups in the molecule. If you are not familiar with the different
functional groups you need to study them first.

These pages make use of a number
of visual aids to display molecules. You will need a copy of the Chime
plug-in from MDL Information Systems to view some of these structures.
If you are not familiar with Chime check this short help
page.

IUPAC Rules of Nomenclature

The International Union of Pure and Applied
Chemists (IUPAC) has devised a system of rules which act as a guideline in naming
organic molecules. A standardized system for naming organic compounds was needed
due to the vast number of structures possible with hydrocarbons. Although the
IUPAC system of nomenclature has been in place since the 1930's, there are a
number of compounds which are still referred to by their common names. This
complicates organic nomenclature to some degree as several names may be possible
for any single compound.

Since every organic molecule contains carbon
(and usually hydrogen) atoms, the names of these two elements do not appear
in the name of the compound. Instead IUPAC uses the longest continuous
chain of carbon atoms to determine the basic, or root name
of the compound. The root name is then modified by the presence of different
functional groups. The
highest priority functional group modifies the suffix of the root name, while
all other groups, or substituents, are added as prefixes
to the root name.

The following list of functional groups will contain an introduction to the
nomenclature of that functional group, including examples. At the end of each
section is an on-line quiz designed to test your new knowledge of the subject.

All of the nomenclature online quizzes can be accessed through this link: Nomenclature Quizzes
If you can not seem to get the correct answer, enter a "?" in the text
box and you will get the correct answer returned.